Not really, not entirely, but some discussion on the previous post about how the powers that be in this nation are now completely off the rails, and just when it was that this nation lost it’s way, prompted me to extrapolate a bit on the broader subject of conspiracies. The nation, of course, was in many ways off the rails from the founding, if you are even halfway convinced by Christopher Ferrara’s most important work, Liberty: The God that Failed, but I left a comment wherein I talked about how recent study has caused me to conclude that my previous belief – that conspiracy theories are almost always false – was itself a result of a deliberate effort by the CIA to discredit those who opposed their varying agendas. That is to say, it was the CIA itself that coined the phrase “conspiracy theory” in the 60s to squash those asking uncomfortable questions about the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, morally questionable (or downright damnable) US activities in many countries, etc., etc……..and in fact came up with all the arguments against conspiracy theories I have tended to believe – that conspiracies are extremely hard to conduct, that they are impossible to keep secret, that to do X so many people would have to be involved that word would certainly get out, that “the real world doesn’t work that way,” among other things. [Sorry for those of you who get posts by e-mail, I wrote this in a huge hurry and really botched the grammar in this first paragraph. The first few sentences didn’t make much sense. Mea maxima culpa]

I had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. To my comment:

One thing I learned recently, which was fascinating and has caused me to re-examine my own previously held notions, is that it was the CIA itself that coined the phrase “conspiracy theory” in response to continued doubts over the JFK assassination and other scandals of the 60s. I wouldn’t say I believe in black helicopters, the Illuminati, chemtrails, or anything quite like that just yet, but it is patently obvious at this point to anyone with an ounce of sense that there is a massive, ongoing conspiracy against conservatism, Trump, liberty, Christianity, and the conception of this nation as founded, or what was long presented as the conception of this nation, that has become so clumsy and obvious of late that it can no longer be ignored, but which in fact goes back decades if not much longer. And yes the US was wrongly founded from the beginning, in being not based on Catholicism (and in many respects hostile to the Faith as it was certainly practiced then, and had been since the early Church), and in being the product of a small dedicated group that sought the overthrow of the existing economic/political/cultural power structure and its replacement with another structure – with themselves in the positions of power. In other words, a conspiracy, and a successful one.

If you read the sad, US-influenced political and cultural history of Mexico since 1800, you will find almost exactly the same thing. A small cabal subverting the will of the vast majority of souls and imposing a hostile and alien construct upon the masses, for their own personal benefit.

And then there is the example of the Church, where again a relatively small cabal, infinitely aided by sympathetic, timid, and/or feckless leadership, has seized control and imposed a radically different construct on the (initially?) largely unwilling masses, and even convinced them of how good and wonderful all these changes have been. Just recently I had an exchange with some septuagenarians, very early boomers who were at just that “right” age at Vatican II, who are just utterly convinced of how wrong and awful the pre-conciliar Church was, and how wonderful all the changes have been. When I presented contradictory evidence, the implosion of vocations, tens of millions of souls lost to the Church in this country alone, etc., etc., they said those were POSITIVE developments, that it made absolutely no difference what “church” one belonged to and those people were probably better off outside the Church, given all the evils like the boy-rape epidemic and collapse of catechesis that have resulted (and that religious life was a crock, that it was a medieval concept for stuffing unmarried daughters and Jesus freaks into veritable asylums). There is absolutely no arguing with these people, no quoting of Scripture, no relation of the wisdom of the Fathers, no statistical data that can possibly move them from their position that Vatican II was an unalloyed good and what existed before an unalloyed evil. These people are wholesale devotees of the new religion foisted on the Church in the 60s. They only remain Catholic themselves for sentimental reasons, or, more demoniacally, to continue the work of destruction (and some of them have been long involved in just that).

These are just a handful of examples. I still do not believe that history in toto is more or less a collection of conspiracies successful and failed, but that doesn’t mean that extremely influential events have not been developed and decided by a (relatively) small group working to a particular purpose.

So get me a tinfoil hat and call me a conspiracy theorist, but honest reading of history reveals that a great many extremely influential events have been the result of a small cadre of dedicated activists, generally working in secret (see France, 1789). IOW, a conspiracy.

And I would say that all the cultural/moral travesties we have witnessed over the past 50-odd years are the result of a deliberate conspiracy aimed at destroying Western civilization and, in particular, the Church, in order to bring about a sexularist socialist “utopia.” I mean, transgender bathrooms, really? or arguing that guys (it’s always guys) who say no to men dressed up as women are hateful bigots? For real? Like that just happened organically, naturally? Riiiiiiight.

I know some, perhaps most, readers have believed that what we have all been sold as “democracy,” or a representative republic where the “will of the people” is expressed, at least generally, in broad strokes, by their elected leaders at the national level, has been dead for decades. Pick your date for when it died – Marbury vs. Madison, the Civil War, the 16th Amendment, direct election of Senators, the assassination of JFK, the lies perpetrated by the intelligence apparatus to suck us into the Iraq War……whatever – the point is, many of you have been onto the fact that this thing we have been very deliberately and carefully propagandized to believe – that we have some say (again, at the national level particularly) in how we are ruled (not governed) – is a farce. It hasn’t been true in a very long time.

I don’t mean to sound defeatist, unpatriotic, or, God forbid, like a carping leftist, but if the revelations of the mammoth, ongoing, unrepentant, largely unreported Deep State conspiracies against Donald Trump, and, more particularly, those who elected him, have shown us anything, it is that somehow, over the past few decades (I think it’s mostly occurred in my lifetime), a deeply entrenched unelected unaccountable cabal has taken over the reins of power in this country, particularly at the national level but depending on where you live all the way down to the most local level, and that democracy, or republicanism, as we have all been taught to believe, is a crock.

This cabal consists of deeply embedded, careerist bureaucrats in the government, the academic environment from which they derive their sacred credentials which they purport makes them fit to rule over others, and a media which has become wholly ideological and uncaring about having even a semblance of impartial coverage. It is deeply classist and thoroughly bourgeois. Indeed, that is their primary objection to Trump and his supporters, that they are so working class, so often Christian, so rough and tumble, so politically incorrect (and thus heretics against their new, self-made, godless and God-hating religion) and just so gauche.

This coalition of the unworthy, this cadre of self-anointed leftists, has grown unchecked in power and influence over the past 50 years irrespective of which party is in office. Well intentioned fool Bush ’43, however, did a very great deal to make their hold on power unshakable through the the “PATRIOT Act” and unaccountable, secretive courts and apparatus that have been, and will continue to be, ranged against the people of this country not in pursuit of national defense, but in pursuit of naked partisanism and self-aggrandizement.

We are confronted in these present days with a scandal that utterly dwarfs the defining political scandal of the past 3 generations (at least) – Watergate – in which a democrat administration and a democrat political campaign found eager partners in the intelligence and federal law enforcement bureaucracies in order to try to destroy the reputation of the Republican candidate and so swing the election to Hillary Clinton. Even after this effort failed and Trump won, the democrats and their media allies have waged an utterly unprecedented and unconstitutional (as if that matters anymore) campaign to have a sitting president accused of committing some crime, any crime, even (or especially) if it is not an actual crime, in order to drive him from office.

And the media, an absolutely vital component in the system of checks and balances envisioned by the Founding Fathers, has gone over wholly into this same obvious partisanship and absolute contempt for decency, fair play, or anything remotely resembling balance. Indeed, the relations between the media, academy, infotainment complex, and government agencies is as incestuous as it is corrupt. All of these entities have a huge stake in seeing the current system continue to grow in wealth and power, no matter the consequences for the “little people” who are being crushed through their avarice. No, that’s wrong……crushing the little people is indeed the point, as this cabal seeks to create a new peasant class and a new aristocracy.

That this cabal is also entirely leftist and filled with loathing for this nation as founded, all non-leftists, and especially those who believe in God and adhere to traditional morality is simply the glue that holds the entire unholy enterprise together.

I’m ranting, but I think we good cause. I have listened to hours of media coverage try to pretend that a government conspiracy to destroy a major party presidential candidate (and now president) is of absolutely no consequence, and in fact, that it is the Republicans who are damaging the Constitution and endangering the Republic. The unmitigated gall…….but as I’ve said before, if you want to know exactly what evils leftists are guilty of, see what they accuse their opponents of.

…Kamala Harris tried to imprison pro-life journalists for probing Planned Parenthood. Now she’s a U.S. senator, whom some think should run for president. What would President Harris’ FBI look like? A lot more like the Stasi than we would like to admit.

More than likely, the best that we can hope for is that Trump will not be wounded politically by all these efforts, but may even get a slight bump. But given what we’ve witnessed in these last 5-6 years of ugly, self-serving, Chicago machine-style rule, there is absolutely zero chance that any of the major players in this attempt to destroy a properly elected Republican administration will even be convicted of a crime, let alone serve any jail time (which, manifestly, numerous people, from Lois Lerner to James Comey to Strozk and these many other characters should). The law, the ever-multiplying rules and regulations they impose on us, are for the little people. The elite, the connected, the self-anointed (always holding the correct, changing-by-the-minute leftist politically correct beliefs) are above such things.

The question is, how much longer are we not just going to take it, but continue to pay for the privilege through our obsequious submission to taxation and and other means of control?

The other question is, many traditional Catholics would argue that what we are seeing now is the inevitable end state of a democracy. All previous “experiments” in democracy have failed. Are we doomed to repeat the experience, and must it lead to civil war and cultural collapse, as it so often has in the past?

What should we, as Catholics, advocate for, in terms of politics, if anything? Is it better to just try to ride out the calamity, doing the best we can for our family and other loved ones, and let the chips fall where they may? Is there a point in engaging in this system anymore, or should we only advocate for some radical alternative, whatever it may be?

The rumors have been that Planned Butcherhood is about to get hit with a number of federal charges/indictments, and that some of those might name apparently departing Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards personally. She got out while the gettin’ was good. Whenever one of these ambitious, wholly ideological creatures says “time with the family” or “other projects,” it means it was forced in one way or another. These people never voluntarily step down from their positions of power and influence. To the idea that she means to run for governor of Texas – yeah, good luck with that.

Anyway, by deliberate act, she participated in the murder of over 3.5 million babies. That makes her one of histories greatest monsters:

The President of America’s largest abortion chain Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, plans to resign next week, according to a Buzzfeed report that cited “two sources familiar with the matter.”

A Planned Parenthood representative told Buzzfeed, “Cecile plans to discuss 2018 and the next steps for Planned Parenthood’s future at the upcoming board meeting.”

“The Planned Parenthood official did not comment on Richards’ future,” Buzzfeed reported, even though “Richards, 60, has informed at least some members of the organization’s board of directors [that she is leaving], one of the sources confirmed.”

Richards has overseen America’s largest abortion vendor since 2006. Her salary continually increased as did her tenure. She currently rakes in nearly a million dollars a year overseeing the organization that commits over 300,000 abortions annually. [$3 a head. What a bargain.]

During the Obama era, the abortion business had an ally in the White House. However, Richards still had to contend with investigations from Live Action and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) that revealed Planned Parenthood’s willingness to cover up child sex abuse, aid-and-abet sex traffickers, and profit from selling body parts of aborted babies. [Abortionists cover up sex abuse? How else do the abusers get rid of the evidence? I mean, c’mon people! This is current year! What else are they going to do with it?!? It’s not like selling babies into white slavery in Qatar or Brunei is easy these days!]

Since President Trump took office, Planned Parenthood has increasingly sounded the alarm about the threat he and other pro-life Republicans pose to abortion-on-demand.

“Cecile Richards was the most devoted practitioner of Planned Parenthood’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mantra to cover up their barbaric abortion business from the public,” David Daleiden of CMP told LifeSiteNews. “As Planned Parenthood faces federal criminal investigation from the FBI and DOJ for selling aborted baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains, Richards’ departure shows that the old strategy is no longer working – the secret is out that Planned Parenthood is a taxpayer-sponsored crime syndicate of industrial-scale child killing, and even Cecile Richards can no longer put a friendly spin on it.” [Awesome quote]

“Cecile Richards may be stepping down because Planned Parenthood is under investigation for illegally trafficking in aborted baby body parts and other crimes,” Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, told LifeSiteNews. “She may be trying to get out before indictments drop. She is also tainted with other scandals by her close affiliation with Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS, which are also being investigated. Planned Parenthood may now view her as a liability.”

“In any case, this news indicates a destabilized Planned Parenthood organization, and as long as they are in disarray, they can’t expand their abortion enterprise, and that is good news,” said Newman.

So for the greatest killers of the last 120 years, Cecile Richards has passed fellow leftist Pol Pot and is up there in Hitler territory. She’s a piker compared to the greatest leftist murderers of all time, though – Stalin and his 50 million, and Mao with his 100 million plus.

It’s almost like this ideology is the literal inversion of all that is good and true and brings with it nothing but endless, hellish death. But it’s the official ideology of probably 95% of all the college professors in this country and throughout the West. Could a hundred thousand academics really be this wrong?

And you want to pay them $50,000 a year for the privilege of indoctrinating your children in this most beastly of ideologies? Of course, there are ways around this, it’s not a blanket condemnation of sending any kids to any college, but it is meant to be a provocative challenge – are you really thinking about what you’re doing? And are you doing it for them, or for yourself? I knew a family, an outwardly good, seemingly Catholic family, that refused to believe that Notre Dame University was anything but the be all and end all of Catholicism, and the absolute best place to send their kids to college after going through the incredible sacrifice of homeschooling all of them. They had 5 kids. They sent four of them to Notre Dame. Every single one has fallen away from the Faith. and not in a low key, but a spectacular manner. They’re not just cold to the Faith, they are positively hostile. The last kid, the youngest, was lucky. He didn’t have the grades for Notre Dame. So he’s going to a local community college, and is still Catholic.

I bring up this bit about college because Leftism is an all-pervading ideology with a thousand facets and a million ways to kill a soul. It’s also the dominant culture in our media-numbed society. Leftism always ends in death. Sometimes its the death of millions of babies, other times it’s the death of faith in millions of souls, but it always brings death with it, because it’s not just a creation of fallen men, but it was contrived as a deliberate antithesis to Christianity and godliness. It’s the tempting alternative to a moral, godly life. It’s presented as bright and shiny, intelligent and popular, urbane and sophisticated, the default belief set for anyone who wants to be anybody in this world.

But this is what it really is:

For the squeamish, frankly, I could have shown much, much worse. This is who Cecile Richards is, and what she promotes. May God have mercy on her soul, and may she convert before it is too late.

A couple of videos from Tumblar House below, critiquing the modern “liberal” democratic state and pointing out its internal contradictions. Indeed, I think a reasonable argument could be formed that the Catholic hating Karl Marx was somewhat on the right track in predicting that a then-emerging system would collapse of its own internal contradictions, but he was wrong to apply that reasoning to the economic sphere rather than the political. That’s not to say that anything else was at all right, and in fact I am being a bit deliberately tongue in cheek and provocative in even relating this to Marx, but the point is, there are far, far more identifiable and correctable problems with the modern (cult like) understanding of “democracy” as the pinnacle of political evolution than there were, or are, with capitalism as an economic system. That is not, to say, the modern “capitalist” state with heavy socialistic government interference almost everywhere in the world, and certainly in the global mass economy, with the government picking winners and losers and stacking the deck heavily in favor of corporate titans, but with the essence of capitalism, which is eminently Catholic and essentially the natural economic system of humankind – the exchange of goods and services at agreed upon rates by free actors acting in their own perceived interest.

Having said that, the two vids are interesting and worthy of some reasonable discussion, though I deplore the production values in the first. Being a host is harder than it looks! I’ve never heard of this Christophe Buffin de Chosal before, but it seems Charles Coulombe admires his work. Endorsements aside, I believe he does raise some valid and important points, that democracy, far from elevating the best of society to the top to serve as enlightened, dispassionate rulers, instead tends to advance the very worst – as the top political figures we’ve seen in this country over the past half-century, at least, have made abundantly clear. What tends to emerge is that, by pandering to the lowest common denominator in a society (buying special interest votes), hidden, or not so hidden, actors behind the scene can gorge themselves on the taxpayer teat while more or less ignoring the will of the masses. Goodness, to take one issue alone, there have been huge majorities (in the US, at least) in favor of drastically limiting LEGAL immigration in this country for decades, not to speak of illegal immigration, and yet the politicians, beholden to elites who desire cheap labor, continue to enact laws and policies that not only permit but encourage immigration at rates, and from cultures, that are demonstrably eating away at the fabric of not only the United States but the entire West.

Anyway, I am out of time, but discuss. I know many trads and hardcore Catholics tend to be critical of the modern liberal erstwhile democratic state, anyway, and there are probably a number of monarchists among us, but is democracy doomed to fail? Will it take down the entire culture with us, as it practically did the great ancient civilization of the Mediterranean, collapsing into first despotic rule and then total civilizational implosion, at least in the West? Are there ways out of this that are reasonably possible?

Cliches exist because they often serve as a sort of shorthand for truth, an often glib but also uncannily accurate description of a place, an event, a tendency, etc. Now, cliches can serve to represent and advance unfair bias, and often do, and they can badly misrepresent and miss vital nuance. But having said that, the cliche of the mean ‘ol trad Catholic is probably the dominant, knee jerk reaction we trads have to contend with. And, not entirely unfairly, it must probably be said.

How has this come about? Likewise, what about the trad cliche of the silly, far from groovy, get over the 60s hippy dippy happy clappy define your own truth Novus Ordo type? How true are these descriptions, and from where might they stem?

My new sole source for blogging material, Tumblar House, has some answers below, which I found pretty insightful. In this case, I thought Charles Coulombe’s confrere made perhaps the most insightful contribution – we trads/faithful Catholics are the product of long years of avoiding and overcoming constant deadly threats, both to ourselves and to our children – you think a few years of that might make someone a little reserved in charity and prone to pounce on perceived threats with maybe a bit more relish than absolutely necessary? And how about the rank failure of the hierarchy to define and defend Truth, so that laity have, by default, often had to step into this role? Think that might also have had some less than perfect fruit?

This short segment also provides a keen insight into that strange entity, the former devout pre-conciliar Catholic who now so loved the old Mass and all the old devotions, and now, as a septuagenarian or octogenarian finds them repellent. This person may or may not be a hippy casualty leftist, they may be quite orthodox in their Novus Ordo way, but they just viscerally hate the old Mass. How could that person, on an objective level, exist, when the TLM is so manifestly superior on practically every level possible? Well, they went through the incredibly jarring experience of being told by the Church, their Mother, that all they loved and held dear was not just far from ideal, but positively harmful/dangerous, and would be replaced by something “better.” I can’t imagine how painful that must have been, nor the depth of Faith those folks had, and have, to have seen them through that experience. That’s not to say their reactions, then or now, were always the right ones or even virtuous (mass contraceptive use, anyone?), but it does help to explain how these people came about. I think it hard for someone like me, who converted on the cusp of the 21st century, to comprehend just how obedient Catholics were in the 1960s, and the entire expectation of obedience that was woven into the fabric of Catholic lives at that time. That ethos, once such a cornerstone of the Faith (to an extent that m may have been excessive and even unhealthy, as natural as it was given the external attacks the Church faced from 1789-1958, say) has been one of the biggest casualties of the collapse of hierarchical authority since the “new springtime” of Vatican Il Duce.

Basically the Church is badly broken, probably in worse shape than she’s ever been, and that has left the sheep largely fending for themselves. We should not be surprised that under such circumstances, the laity would be left confused and even divided into hostile camps. This will persist, in my surmise, until the revolution that afflicted the Church in the 60s/70s (and today) is definitively rolled back, either by overt act or by slow submersion beneath a renewed authentic Catholicism.

Via Steve Skojec at One Peter Five comes a review of a short (141 pp) book on Francis, his seedy and troubling past life, his outlook, his philosophical and psychological shortcomings, and his disastrous agenda. The review is quite long, about 4000 words, so I’ll only hit some high points. In summation, however, the author of this book, who is anonymous (and has apparently caused a furious response in Rome and a search for his identity) but who goes by the deliciously Catholic name of Marcantonio Collona (the leader of the fleet of the Papal States at Lepanto), ties together much already known about Francis and his hard left agenda, while at the same time delving into his past and revealing a very great deal about Francis’ apparently nasty personality, his carefully crafted image as a great humble man (note the contradiction), and the mysterious twists and turns that led a man who was lambasted by his superiors in the post-conciliar Jesuit order as wholly unfit for high office (think about that) to become Pope. This naturally includes a great deal about the deceased Cardinal Martini, long-time leader of the leftist/anti-Catholic “Bologna School” of misfits and miscreants in the Church otherwise known as the “St. Gallen Mafia.”

The name of this new book is The Dictator Pope, and it is available for purchase online, but only in Kindle and similar e-formats. I look forward to purchasing the book once it is available in print, if a publisher can be found (and believe me, with this pontificate, that will not be an easy task).

Taking up with some excerpts from Skojec’s review:

The book promises a look “behind the mask” of Francis, the alleged “genial man of the people,” revealing how he “consolidated his position as a dictator who rules by fear and has allied himself with the most corrupt elements in the Vatican to prevent and reverse the reforms that were expected of him.” [Indeed. Whatever happened to the reform of the Vatican Bank (IOR), or the advancing of even stiffer penalties and interdictions against abusive priests, or men unsuited to the priesthood due to their addiction to perversion, or the financial reform of numerous corrupt Roman ministries, especially those associated with the disgustingly corrupt Cardinal Angelo Sodano and the entire group of high prelates and curial officials who were given enormous graft from Maciel Maciel to cover up his hideous abuses and double life? And these barely scratch the surface. In point of fact, after battling mightily to undo the tremendous power Sodano had accumulated under Pope JPII, Benedict has had to live to see this wholly corrupt and heterodox creature not just restored to his former power and influence, but perhaps more influential than ever. These are the kinds of creatures Francis has chosen to surround himself with, since they will OK any ideological agenda so long as their nests continue to be feathered.]

The book promises a look “behind the mask” of Francis, the alleged “genial man of the people,” revealing how he “consolidated his position as a dictator who rules by fear and has allied himself with the most corrupt elements in the Vatican to prevent and reverse the reforms that were expected of him.”

OnePeterFive has obtained an advance copy of the English text, and I am still working my way through it. Although most of its contents will be at least cursorily familiar to those who have followed this unusual pontificate, it treats in detail many of the most important topics we have covered in these pages, providing the additional benefit of collecting them all in one place.

The author of the work is listed as Marcantonio Colonna — a transparently clever pen name laden with meaning for the Catholic history buff; the historical Colonna was an Italian nobleman who served as admiral of the papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto. His author bio tells us he is an Oxford graduate with extensive experience in historical research who has been living in Rome since the beginning of the Francis pontificate, and whose contact with Vatican insiders — including Cardinals and other important figures — helped piece together this particular puzzle. The level of potential controversy associated with the book has seemingly led some journalists in Rome to be wary of broaching the book’s existence publicly (though it is said to be very much a topic of private conversation), whether for fear of retribution — the Vatican has recently been known to exclude or mistreat journalists it suspects of hostility — or for some other reason, remains unclear. Notable exceptions to this conspicuous silence include the stalwart Marco Tosatti — who has already begun unpacking the text at his website, Stilum Curae — and Professor Roberto de Mattei, who writes that the book confirms Cardinal Müller’s recent remarks that there is a “magic circle” around the pope which “prevents an open and balanced debate on the doctrinal problems raised” by objections like the dubia and Filial Correction, and that there is also “a climate of espionage and delusion” in Francis’ Vatican.

Some sources have even told me that the Vatican, incensed by the book’s claims, is so ardently pursuing information about the author’s true identity that they’ve been seeking out and badgering anyone they think might have knowledge of the matter. The Italian version of the book’s website has already gone down since its launch. The reason, as one particularly credible rumor has it, is that its disappearance was a result of the harassment of its designer, even though that person had nothing to do with the book other than having been hired to put it online.

If these sound like thuggish tactics, the book wastes no time in confirming that this pope — and those who support him — are not at all above such things. Colonna introduces his text by way of an ominous portrait of Francis himself, describing a “miraculous change that has taken over” Bergoglio since his election — a change that Catholics of his native Buenos Aires noticed immediately:

Their dour, unsmiling archbishop was turned overnight into the smiling, jolly Pope Francis, the idol of the people with whom he so fully identifies. If you speak to anyone working in the Vatican, they will tell you about the miracle in reverse. When the publicity cameras are off him, Pope Francis turns into a different figure: arrogant, dismissive of people, prodigal of bad language and notorious for furious outbursts of temper which are known to everyone from the cardinals to the chauffeurs.

Colonna writes, too, of the “buyer’s remorse” that some of the cardinals who elected Bergoglio are experiencing as his pontificate approaches its fifth anniversary: “Francis is showing,” writes Colonna, “that he is not the democratic, liberal ruler that the cardinals thought they were electing in 2013, but a papal tyrant the like of whom has not been seen for many centuries.” [Gee, a hardcore leftist ideologue who is also an out and out tyrant. Who would have known? I thought these Vaticanistas and high cardinals were political sharpshooters? How could they be so naïve? Maybe they are not so sharp as they like to think.]

Colonna then transitions to an opening chapter exposing the work of the so-called St. Gallen “Mafia” — the group of cardinals who had been conspiring for decades to see to it that a pope of their liking — a pope like Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was capable of becoming — would be elected. Formed in 1996 (with precursor meetings between progressive European prelates giving initial shape to the group as early as the 1980s) in St. Gallen, Switzerland [notice how leftists, supposed friends of the common/downtrodden man, always seem to ensconce themselves in luxury when given the chance], the St. Gallen Mafia was originally headed up by the infamous late archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The group roster was a rogue’s gallery of heterodox prelates with a list of ecclesiastical accomplishments that reads more like a rap sheet than a curriculum vitae. (In the case of Godfried Danneels, implicated in some way in about 50 of 475 dossiers on clerical sexual abuse allegations that mysteriously disappeared after evidence seized by Belgian police was inexplicably declared inadmissible in court, this comparison transcends analogy.)[Yep. Look, the Leftists in the Church thought they were electing a fellow-traveler, at least, in naming a relatively unknown from Poland – a product of the sainted “Ostpolitik “ of Paul VI – as pope in 1978. But he turned out to be much more conservative (relatively) than they wished. So they began an illicit, illegal (in Church law) conspiracy, basically, to make sure a pope to their liking would be elected after JPII. They didn’t quite succeed in 2005, but managed to send Benedict XVI running for fear of the wolves (under threat of the financial ruination of the Church?) and finally got their man in 2013. The fact that any such collusion prior to an enclave automatically invalidates that enclave AND results in the excommunication of the participants didn’t bother them a whit. Why would it? They’d have the power if their man got in, and the media would always have their back if they didn’t. It was low-risk for them. And since when has a pontiff had the stones to cast out large swaths of the episcopate for being heretics/schismatics, anyway? The last time was 1908-10, wasn’t it?]

The names of some of the most prominent members of the group — many of which would have been unknown to even relatively well-informed Catholics just a decade ago — have become uncomfortably familiar in recent years: Cardinals Martini, Danneels, Kasper, Lehman, and (Cormac) Murphy O’Connor have all risen in profile considerably since their protege was elevated to the Petrine throne. After a controversial career, Walter Kasper had already begun fading into obscurity before he was unexpectedly praised in the new pope’s first Angelus address on March 17, 2013. Francis spoke admiringly of Kasper’s book on the topic of mercy — a theme that would become a defining touchstone of his pontificate. When Kasper was subsequently tapped to present the Keynote at the February 14, 2014 consistory of cardinals, the advancement of his proposal to create a path for Communion for the divorced and remarried thrust him further into the spotlight. The so-called “Kasper proposal” launched expectations for the two synods that would follow on marriage and the family and provided the substrate for the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, around which there has been a theological and philosophical debate the likes of which has not seen in the living memory of the Church. For his part, Danneels, who retired his position as Archbishop of Brussels under “a cloud of scandal” in 2010, even went so far as to declare that the 2013 conclave result represented for him “a personal resurrection experience.” [What kind of creature would frame anything like that, let alone the election of a pope, and most of all, this pope? Oh, right, the same kind of man that would at least cover up, if not directly participate in, mass boy rape for decades]

And what was the goal of the St. Gallen group?

Originally, their agenda was to bring about a “much more modern” Church. That goal finally crystalized around opposition to the anticipated election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy — a battle in which they were narrowly defeated during the 2005 conclave, when, according to an undisclosed source within the curia, the penultimate ballot showed a count of 40 votes for Bergoglio and 72 for Ratzinger. Colonna cites German Catholic journalist Paul Badde in saying that it was the late Cardinal Joachim Meisner — later one of the four “dubia” cardinals — who “passionately fought” the Gallen Mafia in favor of the election of Ratzinger. After this loss, the Gallen Mafia officially disbanded. But although Cardinal Martini died in 2012, they staged a comeback — and eventually won the day — on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. For it was on that day that Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped out onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, victorious, as Pope Francis the First. Those paying attention would take note that one Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium stood triumphantly by his side.

———-End Excerpt————-

There is much more at the link, but I’ve taken too much already. Skojec will take a tire iron to my shooting hand if I take anymore.

But he goes into quite a bit about Francis’ emulation of his youthful political paramour, Juan Perón, and how, aside from a sort of reflexive populist leftism, little informed that man’s career save for his own lust for power. Readers should take from this a cold shot of reality against any hopes that Franky George Bergoglio will follow his predecessor into abdication. Quite the contrary, having access to power will probably lengthen his life by 5-10 years. That’s how these things seem to go. Look at finally deposed 94 year old Robert Mugabe.

Also reviewed are the synods, which I would argue were doctrinally meaningless, and the subsequent deconstruction of the Church’s moral edifice through Amoris Laetitia.

Reader MFG sent the following link, and a very helpful summary, on the following sermon regarding the grave error of so-called religious liberty. The sermon generally follows the logic of Christopher Ferrara’s Liberty: The God That Failed. It is especially harsh on the founding and ordering of the US government, wherein endarkenment deists established a government built upon Lockean principles, with the state stepping into the place of God as the supreme arbiter and ultimate object of allegiance.

But I thought MFGs summary was as concise and as good (or better) than anything I can write, so here it is, along with the sermon. I add a few thoughts onto his.:

Wow – this is a quick but incisive sermon on religious liberty’s dangers. It’s from a slightly different angle than what’s covered in the past. We could unpackage it for weeks…Here are a few takeways.

Founding Fathers thought they needed to set limits on Christ’s reign [Informed by endarkenment philosophy, especially that of Locke and Hobbes, that was indeed the case]

They undid time and founded a government that was pre-Christian in its governing philosophy. [a return to paganism, undoing 1700 years of Christian civilization]

They founded a government which relied on man’s own reasoning unaided by revelation or sanctifying grace (i.e. based on darkness/blindness).

It was worse than the governments of the pre-Christian Jews who at least had revelation to guide [And had the excuse of ignorance]

The US Govt is like the Roman Pantheon – people can have their own gods as long as these gods are not exclusive or hostile to government (religious freedom) [But what matters most to the US gov’t, or where its cultural loyalties lie, can change radically over time. For the first 150 years, the US gov’t was more or less a mainline protestant gov’t, because that was the dominant culture. But the seeds of that culture’s destruction were sewn in the US founding, so that 60 years or so ago sexular leftism became culturally dominant, and now the US gov’t serves to advance THAT culture, which is intrinsically hostile to Christianity. Of course, it took decades of unprecedented, dedicated mass infiltration and undermining of existing cultural bulwarks to achieve that switch, but here we are, and I do not think there is any going back, not with this present form of gov’t.]

By keeping all religions equal, there needs to be a referee to manage or balance these religions – hence the government steps in.

To permit the govt. to be a referee, the people elevated government above religion

State becomes the supreme god. [yep]

My thoughts [MFG’s thoughts]: This accurately and deeply describes our situation – governing in blindness. It also explains why liberalism and to some extent conservativism (or GOP Republicanism) becomes its own orthodoxy and religion. When someone opposes a political policy that contradicts church’s teaching (unjust/unlimited wars for example), the person is treated like a heretic or apostate (whether on the left or right).

Shreds post-conciliar notions of ecumenism, don’t it?

I really liked MFG’s summary and hope it turns into a basis for discussion. As he noted, this is a very complex subject and could take many hours of argument to fully analyze, but even as it stands, I think the sermon very much worth listening to (it’s only about 15 minutes) and considering. Another great upload from Sensus Fidelium. At core, it reveals we get the society we make. If we turn away from God and try to create a secular humanist paradise, human “paradise” (as in not) is what we will get.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the notion that the US as founded was disordered at best and a diabolical inversion of right government at worst, the key point to take away, I think, is that any government, any human society, not oriented with Jesus Christ as its visible Head and King is doomed to failure. All human creations fail. Only the Church, wounded though she presently is (and has been at a few times in the past), has survived, because the Church is not a human construct. It has a human element, prone to failure and corruption, but it will always retain its supernatural, perfect, indestructible element.

If we wish to create human societies that will endure, we shall have to do the same. But it’s been often said, our fallen natures make us prey to self-destruction.

Apparently, they believe North Korea’s nascent ICBMs (still appears they have no workable reentry vehicle, and it’s no mean task to get them to work, we spent years and billions on that alone) represent the first time the US has ever been threatened by nuclear-tipped ICBMs. I would have thought they would have at least heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, foolishly caused by the incompetence of John Fitzgerald Kennedy the proudest moment of the God-Emperor JFKs administration, but apparently not.

Then there was that 40+ year unpleasantness known as the Cold War, with thousands of hair-trigger warheads, some stationed only 5 minutes flight time away from the US coast in submarines, ready and able to go off at a moment’s notice.

And, of course, persisting to this day, Russia and China have ICBMs targeted on the US. Both have continued to develop new warheads, new ICBM and SLBM delivery systems, and new defensive technologies even while the US has stood entirely pat with a now 25 year moratorium on the research, development, testing, and production of new (or existing) nuclear weapons save for some modest rebuilds in the increasingly unlikely hope that the current arsenal would work if called upon (it’s not that unlikely, yet, but each year makes the problems of so-called “stockpile maintenance and reliability” that much greater).

A more general question – has there ever been a tweet that actually increased a tweeter’s stature in the world?

Deliberate, weaponized idiocy is the primary recruiting tool of the democrat party. It’s also a perfect demonstration of leftist projection – it was Obama’s policy of appeasement, including gifting North Korea with billions of dollars in aid, that likely funded their weapon’s development programs. That, and turning loose $150 billion in Iranian assets in a the biggest giveaway since Munich 1938. How much of that unfrozen Iranian money has ended up atop North Korean ICBMs is unknown at this time, but given how these two nation’s missile and nuke development programs are run basically as one big bi-national effort, probably more than a little bit.

So far from being the Shield of Faith they’d like to claim, insulating the American people from a dangerously unhinged North Korean regime, Obama was actually a primary instigator of whatever terror these democrats now feel. But they could never admit that, it be like me denying Jesus Christ, though they have every reason to make their denial, and I have none.

Sodomy – who am I to judge? Adulterers committing the gravest of sacrilege in sacrilegiously receiving the Blessed Sacrament – no problem. But denying the sacred doctrine of anthropocentric global cooling warming climate change – such perversion, such heresy!, has no place in the Church.

Rorate nailed it on the day after his election – welcome to the pontificate of Paul VI, redux:

Pope Francis on Thursday rebuked those who deny the science behind global warming and urged negotiators at climate talks in Germany to avoid falling prey to such “perverse attitudes” and instead accelerate efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. [no major industrialized nation has reduced carbon emissions more over the past 10 years than has the United States. This was just reported a day or two ago. Even if the United States went back to a 17th century economy with the attendant death of 90+% of the population, carbon emissions worldwide would still grow rapidly due to the unabated output of India, China, and similar nations. The entire project, then, is just a joke.]

Francis issued a message to the Bonn meeting, which is working to implement the 2015 Paris accord aimed at capping global emissions. [And how many kilotons of carbon were spewed into the atmosphere by thousands of activists, plutocrats, and bureaucrats jetting into Bonn from around the world?] In it, Francis called climate change “one of the most worrisome phenomena that humanity is facing.” He urged negotiators to take action free of special interests and political or economic pressures, and to instead engage in an honest dialogue about the future of the planet. [For the leftist, “dialogue”=doing what I want. By “special interests,” Francis means those with very justifiable concerns not only about the faulty theory of human-caused climate change, but the murderous, impoverishing impact of sudden and draconian limits on emissions of what is an entirely natural substance]

Francis didn’t cite any countries by name, but the United States has announced it is withdrawing from the Paris accord, and President Donald Trump has nominated several people in his administration who question scientists’ conclusions that human activity is behind the global rise in temperatures. At the same time, the U.S. administration has promoted the use of fossil fuels like coal for U.S. energy needs.

In his landmark 2015 environmental encyclical, Francis said global warming is “mainly” due to human activity and he called for fossil fuels to be progressively phased out without delay. [Thus we have a Bishop of Rome, heir of St. Peter, endorsing, in a doctrinal document, a dubious and highly contentious scientific theorem. This will only turn out badly, and should global warming be decisively refuted by a mass return to sanity and de-funding of government-directed scientific propaganda “research,” it will be used by enemies of the Church forever anon.]

In his message, the Argentine pope denounced that efforts to combat climate change are often frustrated by those who deny the science behind it or are indifferent to it, those who are resigned to it or think it can be solved by technical solutions, which he termed “inadequate.” [Said the doctrinaire liberal with absolutely no scientific training or credibility]

“We must avoid falling into these four perverse attitudes, which certainly don’t help honest research and sincere, productive dialogue,” he said.

Well there you go, you perverts. You get the sense Francis is building towards something, a great and thorough rebuke of the Church That Was. I mean, the Vatican is issuing stamps celebrating the worst, most destructive heresy in the history of the Church. It seems more and more plausible this man wants a decisive, open break with the Church and the Tradition upon which it is founded. I mean much, much further than the things he’s already done. Something like nailing his own figurative 99 theses on the door of the Vatican, an open, unmistakable embrace of Protestantism and call for the Church to repent of its “errors.”

I don’t mean to become overwrought over this latest, relatively minor upturned middle phalanges at the dwindling number of faithful. It’s more the whole sweep of this pontificate, nearly 5 years old now, that I’m talking about.

At least, maybe, when it comes to the canard of instant mass deportation.

But in reality, in their recent confab discussing the hot-button topic of immigration, what was presented an attempt to basically refute lay complaints that the US bishops – reverting to unfortunate, damaging, hurtful stands they took in the 70s and 80s – are infringing upon lay rights by insisting upon specific policy prescriptions as being the only doctrinally acceptable approach. This echoes the dark days of the “Bernadin”-dominated US episcopate, when supposed paeans to “peace” and “justice” were in reality little more than far left talking points and anti-Reagan, anti-US defense rhetoric.

Well, personnel is policy, and Francis has been busy remaking the US episcopate in his own image and likeness. With men like Blaise Cupich in positions of great influence, and the sidelining of more (relatively) conservative forces like Conley and Chaput, this is hardly surprising. Francis’ influence will likely be felt in the US episcopate for a decade or more to come, depending on how long he reigns, and how replaces him.

As the conclusion of a lengthy discussion on migration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops decided Monday to draft a statement from their president expressing the need for humane and just immigration reform.

The Nov. 13 proposal was first floated by Archbishop Michael Sheehan, Archbishop Emeritus of Santa Fe. After debating how to go about preparing a statement, it was agreed by oral assent that Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the conference, would issue a statement with the assistance of the Committee on Migration, chaired by Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, assisted by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles.

The discussion followed brief presentations from Archbishop Gomez and Bishop Vasquez. The Los Angeles archbishop outlined the principles which guide the US bishops’ work on migration, which come from Strangers No Longer, a 2003 pastoral letter issued jointly by the US and Mexican bishops’ conferences……… [That is a poor, and in many ways politically extremist, document. It is on a par with “Always Our Children,” which tacitly or openly endorsed most of the sodomite agenda, for bad documents written by bishops in the past 20 years. It insists upon basically a free right for Mexican and other Latin American nationals to have free access, on demand, to US jobs, welfare benefits, and services, with nothing more than lip service, and even that slight, to the extremely negative impact mass immigration of low-skill, benefits-seeking, poorly-educated has on native workers in a post-industrial economy. This is not 1890. We don’t have millions of manufacturing jobs suitable for a 3rd grade intellect anymore. The bishops are living in a fantasy land, constructed from their near total disconnect with the flock they lead and their needs. The robust economy and abundant riches they refer to constantly as the driving moral imperative in favor of ceaseless mass immigration with virtually no limit or control no longer exists. Trump was elected precisely because millions of Americans, more and more of them formerly solidly middle class, can no longer find work. Their wages are horribly depressed by competition from illegal and other foreign workers imported into this country specifically for the purpose of driving down the cost of wages. Thus the bishops, contrary to their rhetoric, are not really so concerned about the little man – there are millions of Americans suffering gravely from the immigration pandemic – they are actually carrying water for the transnational globalist elite, who want a large and ignorant labor force that makes little more than $5 an hour. This is an environment in which everyone suffers, including the immigrants, the vast majority of which lose their faith, and generally also their moral compass, in crossing the Rio Grande. I am being harsh, the bishops may simply be naïve and myopic, but a very solid argument can be constructed that they are deliberately acting in behest of powerful interests, all the while clothing themselves in the garment of “friend of the little guy” (so long as he is not a native-born American)].

……..Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces raised the question of how to counter charges that immigration policy is a matter of prudential judgement, and that the faithful may therefore in good conscience come to a judgement which differs from that of the bishops.

Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami responded that “we’re making our prudential judgement, too … in the light of Catholic teaching.” He emphasized that “immigrants are not problems, but brothers and sisters; strangers, but strangers who should be embraced as brothers and sisters. We’re offering what we think is best, not only for the immigrants, but for our society as a whole. We can make America great, but you don’t make America great by making America mean.”

Immigration reform, he maintained, must “include the common good of everyone: Americans and those who wish to be Americans.” [OK, that’s your opinion, but many Catholic laity believe it is not only wrong, it is destructive and harmful and in many ways achieves the opposite of its intent (i.e., worse outcomes for Americans AND illegal immigrants). We can certainly disagree in prudence.]

Bishop Soto responded that deportations do not fall under the category of prudential judgement, but rather were included by St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical [sic] Evangelium vitae among the sins which cry out to heaven, and so is not merely “consistent with Church teaching,” but “to discard it as a prudential judgement doesn’t reflect our tradition.” [First of all, this is a red herring. No one is seriously advocating, or seriously expects, mass deportations to begin this year, or next, or the year after that. I for one am single-minded – build the dang wall, worry about what to do with those here after that. We must control the situation, the inflow, before we try to reverse it. Once the crisis is passed, we can talk sensibly about how to deal with those here. Secondly, there are four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. An encyclical is an important document but not the place for novel de fide definitions. Thirdly, Evangelium Vitae, which focused primarily on abortion and contraception as evils against human life, mentions deportation once, in quoting Guadium Et Spes, the 3rd worst document of Vatican II, for a list of evils which are “infamies.” Whether an “infamy” equals one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for justice is quite unclear. If so, Vatican II added about 30 other sins to that list, because Guadium Et Spes 27 condemned, equally, and without distinction, everything from genocide and abortion to “living conditions” and “where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons.” That is to say, while GeS 27 sounds impressive, it’s theological import and meaning are muddled, at best. Naturally, then, it would be a favorite of a progressive bishop.]

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco recommended the five principles from Strangers No Longer as a sine qua non, on which “there can be no disagreement” among Catholics. “While there’s room for prudential judgement, it’s not something that can be taken lightly” because it “involves such basic considerations of justice.” [But justice to whom? Aquinas and Augustine would indicate that justice begins with those closest to home. When there are periods of abundance, or when economic and cultural circumstances permit, there can be quite liberal approaches to immigration. With prolonged economic depression and cultural disassociation growing to the level of near open conflict, however, prudence would indicate, even demand, a much more conservative approach. This has been the situation in the US for over 200 years, with periods of mass immigration leading to problems followed by periods of restricted immigration allowing for cultural and economic assimilation.]

———-End Quote————

But let’s be honest, this issue of mass immigration in the present context, is at least as much – and I mean this from the bishop’s perspective, as well – about insuring permanent ascendance for progressive/leftist politics in this country as it is about any purported concern for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free (and is in fact probably much, much more about the former than the latter).

Correspondent MFG sent me this link, and he notes – quite intelligently – that this seems an attempt by the bishops to up their rhetoric and try to squash lay arguments against the bishop’s very liberal pro-immigration stance. The prudential judgment argument has been a powerful one, and they seem to be trying to take that away. As MFG notes, the way to combat this attempt is by returning to first sources and principles, going back to Aquinas, Augustine, Peter Canisius, and others to demonstrate the proper Catholic understanding of the role of government, of citizens of a land’s duties to one another and to those of other countries, of Catholic moral principles (in a hierarchical sense), and all such related topics.

Doing this in a systematic fashion will show that Catholics of any stripe, lay, clergy, whatever, are fully within their rights to advocate for much more limited immigration than the status quo of the past 50 years, and to preserve the culture and heritage of the land they love, which they see slipping away faster and faster all the time. This latest bit of rhetorical weaponry from the bishops is frankly very ugly, very manipulative and smacks of desperation.

UPDATE: Commenter CMatt makes a great point that I failed to address (in my defense, I covered quite a bit, anyway) – these are bishops talking, yes, but not necessarily YOUR bishop, and their authority over you as a soul is basically non-existent. It only exists to the extent that the bishops unanimously approve documents or actions of the Conference, and even in that situation it is more of a tacit authority, something novel in the history of the Church and of dubious significance for souls. That is the huge problem with episcopal conferences, and why Pope Leo XIII found them far from his liking – they muddy the lines of authority greatly and cause tremendous confusion when their actions are contrary to the Doctrine of the Faith. Much of Testem Benovolentae, Leo XIIIs encyclical denouncing the heresy of Americanism (which the US bishops have never faithfully implemented) has to do with these manifest problems that emerge from such conferences – bureaucratization, secularization, inordinate focus on money/funding, an excessive interest in the material works of mercy vice the spiritual works, etc.